Amongst other things, local government associations are established to function as representative bodies of local governments towards national and international institutions. The ARIAL programme aims at strengthening this advocacy and lobby role by organising two regional training sessions: the first aiming at improving the dialogue between local government associations and national/international institutions in development programmes, and the second training aiming at improving the communication and lobby strategies of local government associations towards national decision-makers and their members.
Having implemented the first of these two training sessions in November and December 2011 in all six regions of the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, ARIAL now prepares for the follow-up training: "developing Local Government Association communication, lobby and policy strategies". The training will cover the following topics: (1) policy development and priority-setting and (2) communication / lobby strategy.
During the training, representatives of the local government associations will be encouraged to work on a lobby and communication action plan/strategy of their association. Defining their communication goals, target groups and instruments and how to monitor progress will be part of the training. The focus of the lobby session will be laid on drafting position papers.
Preliminary dates and locations (tbc)